Fyi.
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From: Global Partnership for Disability and Development
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Janet E Lord
Sent: Wednesday, 4 December 2013 1:37 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [GPDD] Dec. 3 - International Day of Persons with Disabilities
I wanted to share this article appearing in Foreign Policy in Focus. I
attach the link and the text version.
Best regards, janet
http://fpif.org/nothing-celebrate-north-koreans-disabilities
Nothing to Celebrate: North Koreans with Disabilities
On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a look at the grim
prospects for disabled North Koreans.
By Janet E. Lord, December 3, 2013.
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(Jonathan Kos-Read / Flickr)
December 3 marks the UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities. For
countless North Koreans with disabilities, there is nothing to celebrate.
North Korea is not party to the widely ratified UN Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), nor did it participate in the
negotiations that led to its adoption by the UN General Assembly in 2006.
To be sure, North Korea is attempting to polish its poor disability rights
image. It sent a lone swimmer to the London Paralympics in 2012. Surrounded
by some 25 minders, the athlete and the delegation spoke in glowing terms
about life for persons with disabilities in North Korea. A 2003 disability
law is on the books in North Korea, but it lacks implementing regulations.
These measures are disingenuous at best. At worst, they represent a brazen
effort to mask disability-based persecution that has strong parallels to
Nazi-era crimes against persons with disabilities.
Nazi-Style Persecution
In August 2013, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights
in North Korea called for investigation of possible international crimes
against persons with disabilities detained in facilities where they are
reportedly used for testing of chemical and biological weapons. This call
comes in response to allegations by North Korean defectors, including a
first-hand account by a former official of the People's Safety Agency.
Successive UN bodies have voiced serious concerns about the human rights
condition of men, women, and children with disabilities in North Korea.
Highly suggestive of crimes against humanity, information on these practices
has been pieced together from reporting and documentation undertaken by UN
agencies and international NGOs, as well as by journalists, South Korean
human rights bodies, and individual North Korean refugees, several of whom
self-identify as disabled.
Testifying about disability-based persecution in North Korea, defectors
paint a chilling picture of forced migration and quarantine of disabled
persons, disability-selective forced abortion, forced sterilization of men
and women with disabilities, infanticide, and targeted killing based on
disability type. The U.S. Department of State's 2012 Human Rights Report for
North Korea makes reference to persons with physical and mental disabilities
reportedly sent from the city of Pyongyang to internal exile, quarantined
within camps, and forcibly sterilized. In a 2012 survey conducted by the
Korean Institute for National Unification (KINU) with North Korean
defectors, 34 percent of respondents stated that "dwarfs" live in isolated
and segregated housing. This persecution appears directly linked to the
politically and ideologically based personality cult of the late Kim
Il-Sung, who reportedly disparaged this group of disabled individuals.
Other reports suggest a consistent practice of segregating persons with
disabilities in the country's infamous prison camp system. A report based on
multiple interviews with some 60 female defectors, highlighted in 2013 by
the special rapporteur on North Korea, indicated the existence of an island
where "disabled people are being sent for medical tests such as dissection
of body parts, as well as tests of chemical and biological weapons." This is
not the stuff of front-page headlines, nor is it the substance of mainstream
human rights reporting on North Korea.
Disability is a determinant of vulnerability in any society, but
particularly so in an oppressive regime where resources are scarce. Ongoing
repression by the North Korean regime contributes to disabling conditions of
all kinds, whether physical, sensory, or mental. First-hand accounts suggest
that deplorable human rights conditions result in disability (and aggravate
pre-existing disability) and, further, make life exceedingly difficult-and
dangerous-for North Koreans with disabilities. The evidence also suggests
that North Koreans with disabilities are often denied the basic human rights
and fundamental freedoms to work, pursue an education, live where they
choose, move freely about, and generally participate in the lives of their
communities.
In assessing the credibility and reliability of human rights reporting on
North Korea, it is important to distinguish between first-hand accounts by
survivors and second-hand reports. Undertaking human rights investigations
in a closed society where in-country work is not possible is clearly
challenging and makes verification difficult. To be sure, second-hand
accounts may be exaggerated, and the motives of interviewees-whether
refugees, NGO workers, or others-may at times be open to question. But even
assuming the existence of contradictory evidence and some unreliable
accounts, the sheer volume of reports disclosing disability-related abuse
points to a widespread and deeply troubling pattern, as indicated by the
special rapporteur's attention to this issue.
Prison Camp Abuse
A persistent and credible pattern of reporting by North Korean defectors
suggests that persecution on the basis of disability is ongoing and
egregious, including (but by no means confined to) the notorious prison camp
system. Research conducted by the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse
University discloses a practice of quarantine of sick and disabled prisoners
in "medical rooms" without medical help or medicine in what former prisoners
have called "death rooms." Indeed, the disabling effects of the prison
system on prisoners are very well documented.
The special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea
underscored the precarious position of prisoners in his August 2013 report.
He noted the subjection of prisoners to forced and dangerous labor with
little rest and limited food rations "resulting in near starvation" and
frequent accidents "causing some prisoners to lose toes, fingers, or limbs
or to develop physical deformities."
Although little is known regarding the prevalence of mental disability among
the population at large or within the prison population, there is evidence
that depression and trauma resulting in disability are widespread. In
addition, there are some reports that mistreatment in the most notorious
camps is so feared that the suicide rate for prisoners facing transfer to
such camps is very high.
Women and Children with Disabilities
Children with disabilities are thought to fare very poorly in North Korea. A
physician defector reported that the killing of newborns with disabilities
was widespread and commonplace, claiming that "there are no babies with
physical defects in North Korea" because they are killed in hospitals or at
home and "quickly buried." Autobiographical accounts and interviews with
other defectors conducted by KINU appear to support claims of
disability-related infanticide, although other reports detailing segregation
and mistreatment of persons with physical disabilities-and thus the survival
of people with disabilities into adulthood-suggest that the physician
refugee's claim is at least exaggerated.
During the past 15 years, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
repeatedly expressed concern over de facto discrimination against children
with disabilities and the lack of state measures to ensure effective access
to health, education, and social services. In 2003, the UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights likewise raised the situation of
children with disabilities, citing their exclusion from the formal education
system. UNICEF has noted that high levels of malnutrition indicated serious
problems for both the physical growth and psychosocial development of young
children. The far-reaching disabling effects of such conditions are
indicated in the finding of KINU that up to one third of potential military
recruits were deemed unfit for service based on cognitive disability rooted
in poor nutrition and general health. Although a national survey from 2012
points to significant improvements from earlier rates of acute malnutrition,
an entire generation experienced the consequences of malnutrition and the
resulting physical and cognitive disability, as underscored by UN human
rights bodies.
Gender discrimination can exacerbate the problem. In North Korea, women with
disabilities are likely to experience serious deprivation on account of
their status as women, in combination with their disability status. As is
well documented in the disability rights literature, women with disabilities
are at elevated risk for violence and sexual abuse. Years of famine in North
Korea resulting in malnutrition-and the strain of searching for food that
inevitably contributes to mental anguish and physical exhaustion-will
invariably take a toll on women with disabilities. Extreme suppression of
sexual and reproductive rights of women in general is credibly documented,
and forced sterilization is one specific manifestation of sexual rights
violations against both men and women with disabilities.
Commission of Inquiry Established
In March 2013, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution establishing
a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to investigate egregious human rights
conditions in North Korea and to determine whether they amount to crimes
against humanity. Although the COI will have a range of issues and a growing
body of credible documentation on which to draw in fulfilling its mandate,
it is essential that its report reflect emerging evidence regarding human
rights abuses against persons with disabilities that bear tragic resemblance
to the persecution experienced by disabled persons in Nazi Germany.
The 2012 State Department Human Rights Report for North Korea indicates that
"little is known about the everyday lives of persons with disabilities." But
as is so often the case with highly repressive regimes, disability-based
persecution appears to be widespread and egregious and thus extremely
pertinent to the newly established COI.
The reality for most disabled North Koreans is dangerous, grim, and tragic.
The government has failed to sign or ratify the CRPD, one of the most
rapidly ratified human rights conventions, yet it is obligated to respect
the rights of persons with disabilities through its ratification of other
treaties and its own domestic legislation. Its insincere efforts to burnish
its disability credentials ring hollow on this International Day for Persons
with Disabilities.
Janet Lord is senior vice president for human rights and inclusive
development at the Burton Blatt Institute, Syracuse University. She is also
a senior research fellow at the Harvard Law School Project on Disability,
adjunct professor of law at American University Washington College of Law,
and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus. The author is grateful for
thoughtful comments and edits provided by Meredith van den Beemt, Allison
deFranco, John Feffer, and McKay Jenkins.
Janet E. Lord
Senior Vice President
Human Rights & Inclusive Development
Burton Blatt Institute
Syracuse University
1667 K Street NW
Suite 640
Washington DC 20006-1603
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